Friday, May 2, 2014

Neandertal: The Answer is Epigenetics Not Evolution by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D.

Neandertal: The Answer is Epigenetics Not Evolution

by
Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. *

Recent genome reports show that the Neandertals are essentially fully
human, causing scientists to reclassify them as "archaic humans."1,2
But what about the apparent subtle differences in anatomy that first
caused scientists to claim that Neandertals were a completely different
species? It turns out that the answer can be found in epigenetics,
according to newly published research.3
Epigenetics, in the more modern sense, refers to the heritable chemical
changes performed by cellular machines to DNA that alter gene function
without actually changing the DNA nucleotide code. In the field of
genomics, it is more accurately referred to as chromatin
modification. Chromatin is the stuff chromosomes are made of which
consists of the DNA molecule packaged around proteins called histones.
Both the DNA and the histone proteins can be chemically modified to
control how genes function and are regulated along the chromosome.

Specifically, the DNA molecule is modified by adding methyl groups to the cytosine nucleotides called DNA methylation.
In general, the more methylated the DNA is at the start of a gene
region, the less active the gene is. The patterns of DNA methylation
across the genome are collectively called the methylome and can be compared between similar genomes and correlated with specific types of gene activity.

In a recent report in the journal Science, researchers studied the methylomes of two different Neandertals using a new indirect method of analysis for archaic DNA.3
They corroborated their DNA methylation profiles with modern humans and
reported that "over 99% of both archaic genomes show no significant
methylation differences compared to the present-day human." Another
verification of their technique is that they also analyzed the patterns
of Neandertal methylation compared to modern humans in housekeeping
genes—those that are required for the maintenance of basic cellular
function. The methylation patterns were the same compared to modern
humans, indicating that the study's methodology was fairly accurate.
The most interesting aspect of the study came... CONTINUE READING AT ICR.ORG